The Riverboat Mystery

by Faith Martin

  She took a long deep breath of pleased anticipation. She could hardly wait for the morning to come. The lure of a short river cruise was beginning to make her feel as excited as a little girl on Christmas Eve.

  With her bed-finding mission now satisfactorily accomplished, Jenny made her way tranquilly back to the garden.

  Wainscott House, she saw at once, had been built around a large quad. In the middle was a large square lawn, with a sundial in the exact centre, which looked both old and original, and she wondered if it had truly come with the house. This lawn was in turn surrounded by colourful and tightly packed herbaceous borders. The house occupied two sides of the square, and on the opposite sides were two small converted cottages that had once been stables, and a variety of outbuildings.

  From one of the large cottage doors, wide enough to have admitted the horses that had once lodged there, a man stepped out and into the sunshine. He wasn’t a tall man, and he wasn’t a young man, and from the way he moved down the path in a curiously circular, rolling gait, Jenny had no difficulty at all in labelling him as an old sea dog. Only sailors walked like that in her experience. Which was considerable. Either that or he was someone who had had way too much grog. This, then, she surmised, could only be the captain.

  Jenny left her seat in the shade in order to waylay him. ‘Hello. You must be Captain Lester?’ she asked pleasantly.

  The man jerked to a halt, obviously taken aback by the sound of a woman’s voice. Jenny wasn’t surprised. She hadn’t thought that the housekeeper, Mrs Jessop, was the kind of woman to take to crusty old sea-salts, and from what she knew (or rather guessed) of a sailor’s lonely life, they probably preferred to keep themselves to themselves. Not that she supposed that piloting a riverboat was the same thing as taking to the oceans.

  Still, one sailor, or so she’d discovered in her early twenties, was very much like another.

  ‘Aye, that’s right. Tobias Lester, ma’am, at your service.’ Tobias Lester was, she supposed, in his mid-fifties. His hair had once been golden but had now settled into that silver-blond salt-and-pepper shade that could be so appealing on a man. His eyes were the same blue-green of the sea, and looked attractive in a rather round, pleasantly creased face. His skin had the look and consistency of leather — no doubt as the result of years of working outdoors.

  ‘I’m your cook for the weekend,’ Jenny introduced herself, instantly liking the older man’s warm smile of greeting.

  Tobias Lester’s smile widened. ‘Pleased to meet you, ma’am. A sailor’s always glad of a first-rate cook. I joined the merchant navy when I was just eighteen, and reckon I’ve sailed every sea that’s out there. But I can’t say that any of the ships I was on had what you might call a first-class cook — not a priority, see? But with pleasure cruises, well, that’s different, isn’t it? Got to keep people happy. Will this be your first cruise?’

  They began to walk in unspoken mutual consent down the path and out towards the river. Jenny took the captain’s assumption that she was, in fact, a ‘first-rate cook’ for granted. But it pleased her nonetheless. What a nice man Captain Lester was.

  Jenny nodded. ‘Yes, it is my first time on the water.’ And then, thinking rather uneasily of Bora Bora and typhoons, she added a shade uncertainly, ‘I hope the going won’t be too rough.’

  Captain Lester laughed heartily. ‘Good grief, no! The river’s as flat as a millpond. It’d have to be, I reckon — the Swan’s a flat-bottomed boat, you see. She can’t take much rocking about.’

  Jenny nodded but didn’t really see at all. What she knew about boats could be written on the back of a pea. And a dried, very shrivelled pea at that.

  ‘She hasn’t got a V-shaped hull,’ the captain continued, showing remarkable patience at a landlubber’s obvious ignorance. ‘If we hit a wave, she has no real way of riding it out comfortably. That’s why Lucas called her the Stillwater Swan, see? There’s a vast difference between the way river craft are made and ships that have to put out to sea.’

  Jenny smiled, much relieved. ‘So it’s a guaranteed smooth ride then, is it?’

  The captain laughed his hearty laugh again, his eyes crinkling attractively at the corners. ‘That I can promise you, ma’am. Even if it rains. Which—’ he looked up judiciously into a bright blue sky ‘—it won’t.’

  And sailors knew these sorts of things. Or so she’d been led to believe. And, in truth, she was quite prepared to take his word for it.

  The captain had an easy-going manner that would enable him, she imagined, to get on well with anyone who crossed his path. But he also had that unmistakable air of competence about him that made you feel you could trust him as well as like him. It came as no surprise then that the socially active Lucas Finch had chosen this experienced and presumably retired seaman for his captain. He looked the part, he wouldn’t embarrass him or his guests with too much social ineptitude, and he so obviously knew what he was doing.

  The perfect man for the Stillwater Swan, in fact.

  The cook glanced back at the house, her face thoughtful. ‘You live in the converted cottages, Captain?’ she asked, slightly curious. She hadn’t expected Lucas Finch to be such a considerate employer.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Me and Brian O’Keefe, the engineer.’

  ‘Mr Finch must use the Swan a lot then — if he likes to keep his staff so close?’ she probed, wondering why she was so curious. Perhaps, she thought wryly, it was the siren call of wanderlust catching up with her rather late in life. But she found herself, rather unexpectedly, envying Lucas Finch and Captain Lester the idyllic life they appeared to lead.

  ‘Oh yes. Lucas loves the Swan almost as much as I do,’ the captain mused, casting such a loving look over the gleaming white boat that Jenny very nearly felt uncomfortable. ‘When I first came here, I’d been in the merchant navy for so long it was getting harder and harder to keep finding a ship to take me on — they like their tars young these days. Can’t say as I blame ’em,’ he added, sighing, then shrugged. ‘It’s a young man’s game, I suppose.’

  Captain Lester, Jenny realized, like a lot of solitary people, could become very loquacious when given the opportunity. Not that she minded. She was at a loose end until the food came anyway, and she was genuinely interested to hear about a life led on the water.

  ‘So when I saw this advertisement, like, for the skipper of an old river paddle steamer, I was down here like a shot. Especially when it came with board and lodging on site. Thought it was going to be one of those touristy things, though. You know what I mean? Take a cruise up the Thames for a hundred quid a day, with a licensed bar thrown in. That sort o’ thing. I was expecting wedding parties and rowdy office outings and whatnot.’

  He shook his head sadly at the thought of it, and Jenny nodded glumly in sympathy.

  ‘So you could’ve knocked me down with the proverbial feather, like, when I came here and met Lucas — Mr Finch. When he told me he was a private owner, I was quite surprised. And then he took me out to the Swan . . .’ His voice trailed off, and Jenny once more nodded in perfect understanding. Yes, she could well imagine his reaction.

  As she herself looked at the boat, it wasn’t hard to understand what a dream come true she must have been to someone like Tobias Lester. He must have felt himself approaching the scrap heap, with nothing but rented accommodation in some anonymous town to look forward to, and a slow and lonely descent into old age. To find himself in charge of a beauty like the Swan, and with the added security of a full-time job as well, it must have felt like all of his Christmases and birthdays had come at once.

  As if sensing the direction of her thoughts, Tobias Lester leaned back against a large wooden pole that marked the beginning of the landing stage, and folded his arms across his muscular chest. ‘I’d more or less resigned myself to a life with my sister, see, up Banbury way. She’s a widow. Got a nice enough little semi, a bit o’ garden. Shops nearby. It’s alright, I suppose. If you like that sort o’ thing.’

&n
bsp; But a bit of a graveyard for a man like you, Jenny instantly surmised, and shuddered. She could well imagine the gloom and despondency with which Tobias Lester must have considered a semi in Banbury. The fact that his words confirmed her hypothesis on his character came as no surprise to her at all. She’d always been good at reading people, and their situation in life.

  ‘And then I saw her.’ The captain nodded his head towards the beautiful white vision, his voice so full of love and slave-like devotion that, for the first time ever, Jenny understood why men insisted on calling a boat ‘she.’

  ‘Course, when Lucas said he intended to take her out at least once a week, I took it with a pinch o’ salt, like. He’d just had her commissioned, see, and I thought . . .’ Aware that he was becoming a little less than discreet, he shrugged his shoulders and trailed off.

  Jenny, of course, had no such scruples. ‘You thought it was just another rich man’s toy?’ she stated flatly. ‘That he’d soon get bored with it, and leave it to slowly rust away, out of sight somewhere?’

  Tobias gave her a thoughtful glance, and then nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought, right enough. And glad I was to be proved wrong. Lucas has had her for years now, and we still go out in her near enough every week. Course, he likes to show her off, so we often take guests up to London or Oxford and back. Sometimes even further — though the river gets narrower the further north you go, and it wouldn’t do to get the Swan stuck. Not that I mind the company of guests, you understand?’ he added anxiously. ‘A boat like the Swan deserves to be shown off. She was made for folks to enjoy. But I like it quiet too –when it’s just us.’

  Tobias settled himself more comfortably against the post. ‘I remember, deep one winter, we took her out just after an ice-breaking barge had been through. We’d had a hoar frost the night before, and the sun came up next morning as pale as a lemon. Well, we took her out, and she was the only boat on the water. All the weeping willows was hanging over the banks, like them silver strings you put on Christmas trees. Must have been a Sunday morning, too, ’cause as we went, we could hear the church bells a’going. No one was with us on that trip, neither. Just me and Brian, Lucas and Francis. I’ll never forget it. People tend to think that a riverboat’s just for the summer. T’ain’t true.’ He shook his shaggy, leonine head, and Jenny, who’d been almost hypnotized by the vision of it in her mind, suddenly opened her eyes a little wider and gave herself a mental shake.

  This would not do!

  ‘Well, I suppose I should inspect the cupboard space on board. I don’t want to take any food that might spoil.’

  ‘Oh, we’ve got a refrigeration unit on board, didn’t you see it?’ Tobias asked, as proud as any father talking of his daughter’s prowess.

  Jenny, thoroughly delighted now, admitted that she hadn’t seen it, and she followed him happily to the galley to be shown a small but handy fridge, tucked away under the sink.

  *

  Hundreds of yards away, in a neat and newly renovated cottage in the middle of the village, David Leigh looked up from his desk and glanced through the window towards the river.

  He should be at the office, by rights, but Archie Pringle, senior partner of Pringle, Ford & Soames, Solicitors, had been more than happy to give him the afternoon off when informed that the junior man had been invited to join Lucas Finch on a weekend river cruise.

  Not only was the Stillwater Swan something of a celebrity around and about, having been featured in several lifestyle magazines and local newspapers, but Pringle, Ford & Soames would be very happy indeed to get their hands on some of Lucas Finch’s much-vaunted business dealings. It was well known that Finch had made the majority of his fortune in biscuits, and owned several factories that still produced such delights as ‘Jimmy Jammy Fingers’ and ‘Peach Puffs.’ There was a lot of mileage to be got out of a biscuit king, so Archie Pringle was more than happy (if a little envious) to let his junior have a little leeway in the hopes of landing some of Finch’s business. And if, as rumour had it, the start-up money for Lucas’s empire had been a shade, well, shady, then that was just too bad. In this uncertain economic day and age, it paid even well-established and respectable solicitors not to be too choosy who they did business with.

  David Leigh, however, was not feeling particularly grateful for his unexpected leisure time. In fact, as he looked out at the river and thought about tomorrow morning and the start of the cruise, happiness was the furthest thing from his mind.

  He pushed the papers he’d been working on away and rose to his feet, feeling stiff-necked and badly knotted up. It was his nerves, he knew. The tension was getting so bad that he thought, just sometimes, that he might go stark staring mad any minute now. He felt like he wanted to scream and rant and rave, but didn’t dare to, because he was not sure that he would be able to stop once he’d started.

  Instead, he walked slowly towards the window, and his eyes went immediately to the almost fairy-like figure of his tiny wife, who was busy picking some raspberries at the bottom of the garden. She looked incredibly lovely, dressed in a pale, floating summer dress, her ash-blonde hair blowing in the breeze.

  Although the doctor had assured them that she was indeed three months pregnant, she still looked as slender as a reed. At only five feet two, with tiny wrists and ankles, David could hardly imagine her big with child.

  He sighed, then winced as a haunting note filled the air. At the bottom of the garden, Dorothy Leigh looked up and frowned. She knew the sound well, of course. Everyone who lived in Buscot did. It was the hauntingly lovely steam whistle of the Stillwater Swan.

  Brian O’Keefe must be testing the boilers in preparation for the cruise tomorrow.

  Dorothy paused in picking the luscious, tart berries, a small frown tugging at her pale brows. She wasn’t looking forward to tomorrow. Or Sunday. She wished, in fact, that they weren’t going at all.

  She knew that Lucas Finch had what her mother coyly called ‘a thing’ for her, but it was not the thought of fighting off Lucas’s rather coarse passes that worried her.

  Her green-eyed gaze turned back to the house and she thought she saw a figure step hastily back from the bedroom window. Not possible, of course. David was hard at work on old man Filey’s last will and testament. The silly old goat was always chopping and changing it about, much to the amused annoyance of his loving kith and kin. He’d probably left his imagined fortune to his cat this time, or to his sour-faced sister, who was, for some reason, currently in favour with the old man.

  Dorothy sighed and resumed picking the berries. If asked, she couldn’t have said quite why she was so uneasy. She only knew that she was. She just couldn’t shake off a feeling of . . . well . . . of doom, almost. Her old granny would condescendingly have put it down to her condition, but Dorothy knew it wasn’t that.

  There was something wrong with David.

  But she knew that her husband would only give her one of his long-suffering, lightly amused looks if she tried to ask him about it, so she didn’t bother. But a wife knew these things.

  And so she went on patiently picking berries, and wishing that Lucas hadn’t asked them out on the boat.

  Inside the house, David Leigh walked back to his desk and pulled out a piece of paper. He looked at it for a long, long time, his face curiously pinched and grim. Yet anybody looking over his shoulder wouldn’t have seen anything remarkable about the correspondence at all. It was simply a lengthy, handwritten letter from one of Pringle, Ford & Soames’s clients, outlining some conveyancing work that he wanted done on a property out Faringdon way.

  But what David Leigh did next might well have surprised any observer.

  Slowly, carefully, and on a separate piece of paper, he began to write an exact replica of the letter. Word for word. And in handwriting that was fast beginning to look indistinguishable from the real, original thing.

  With just a bit more practice, David thought with a near-hysterical and grim twist of his lips, he could have a lucrative second c
areer as a forger ahead of him.

  *

  In the beautiful old town of Woodstock, Gabriel Olney checked his tie in the mirror. It was perfectly straight and impeccably knotted. It was navy blue, and bore the insignia of a very good public school. He stood ramrod straight, looking every inch the colonel he had once been. He was not tall, at five feet eight, but the very rigidity with which he habitually stood to attention made him seem taller. He was going to be sixty-one on his next birthday, but he was as lean and fit as a whippet.

  His dark grey eyes checked that his moustache was properly trimmed, and that his dark blue ‘sailing’ jacket was without a crease. He gave a brass button an eagle-eyed check, but it shone as only good old-fashioned spit and polish could make it shine. He gave a grunt of satisfaction.

  Unlike David Leigh, Gabriel Olney was looking forward to the weekend. Very much so.

  He smiled a rather hard, gimlet-eyed smile as he took off the jacket and began, very carefully and very neatly, to pack his small overnight case. His wife’s larger case already lay half packed on the bed, crammed with garments she’d simply tossed in, willy-nilly.

  He gave it a scathing look.

  When his shaving things were neatly stowed, and his deck shoes (encased in polythene, of course, to ensure that they could make no dirty marks) were neatly tucked away at the side, he shut the lid and zipped it up. Then he straightened and reached into his wallet. From it he exacted a cheque.

  It was a very large cheque.

  As he looked at the row of noughts, he smiled with gloating satisfaction.

  And if the same fictional somebody who might have been watching David Leigh had now been stood peering over his shoulder, they’d have been very surprised indeed. For the cheque was not made out to Gabriel Olney, but was made out by Gabriel Olney to Lucas Finch.

  But still Gabriel, late colonel in what he considered to be one of the best regiments in the land, smiled with eminent satisfaction as he considered the vast sum of money he intended to part with.